Usually when I see a menu things jump out at me as "Oh, I read about that." Tonight, I drew a complete blank! Maybe I was too hungry to think straight. So we were a bit lax on the appetizers and got every entree on the menu except the escolar, which I tend to regret because appetizers are tasty and I like fish. Note: the menu on the website isn't quite what they're serving anymore. Most notably, the birria (goat) and cangrejo (crab) were missing.
Chips and salsa are served before you order. The chips were thin, crisp, fairly warm, and not at all greasy. The three salsas were all tasty: thin versions of salsa verde and salsa rojo, plus a slightly yellow/orange third salsa that I didn't recognize. It had a slightly smokey taste. Not being a fan of alternative salsas, I stuck mostly to the verde.
Guacamole: good version, nice lime tang, huge (perhaps too huge) pieces of avocado, but not as good as the guacamole at Colibri. First of all, it wasn't made tableside. Everyone loves watching someone make guacamole tableside! More importantly, the portion at Colibri is much larger for the same price, and comes with Colibri's amazing homemade tortillas. Tres Agaves had okay tortillas, but nothing as revelatory as Colibri's version. You can sort of see the bowl of guacamole in the background below.
Queso Fresco: one of the best versions I've tasted. It was crumbly but moister and softer than feta, and had a rich milky mouthfeel. People who don't like the taste of whole milk might want to stay away from this, but I found it delightful. It got a lukewarm reception at our table, so I ended up eating it by the forkful towards the end of dinner. Had I known there would be an entire half wedge left, I would have put it on everything.
Sides. They serve three sides for the table to share: slaw with mango slices, rice, and refried beans. All were fine, none were exceptional. The aformentioned tortillas were also available for general wrapping purposes.
Taco platter: two shredded pork, two grilled chicken. I had the pork, and really enjoyed the pineaple bits on top. I still like the Tonayense taco truck better, though. We got two of these beause people liked them and they were hard to share.
Spit roasted chicken: a bit dry in certain areas, and under seasoned. I doused mine with queso fresco. Yum.
Chile Relleno: here's where I start to gripe about what TA is doing to their menu. On line, the chile relleno is described as stuffed with cheese and huitlacoche, a Mexican corn fungus (euphemistically referred to as "Mexican truffles.") I've had huitlacoche; it's deliciously earthy and mushroomy, depite being an ugly black color. The version we were served were stuffed with zucchini. Boring! I was quite peeved. The chiles themselves were large and well grilled.
Carnitas: a large portion of pork, but slightly overcooked.
Grilled Gulf Shrimp: another winner. Huge crunchy shrimp and slightly charred grilled onions.
Stew: I don't think we had the stew on the menu. It seemed to be more of a pork and sausage stew with beans. I think this was one of the more Jaliscan-style things we tasted, but something about it made me think it had been watered down for American consumption.
Grilled skirt steak: one of the best dishes at the table. The steak was cooked just until the center was pink, and the juices were very flavorful. I like skirt steak about ten times more than I like flank steak, so I was a huge fan of this. Unfortunately, there wasn't much of it.
Flan: very nice, could use a darker burnt caramel flavor. The cookie that came with it had a nice deep caramel flavor.
Chocolate cake: ew. Not enough chocolate flavor, dry, crumbly, and a little mealy. It was like a stale brownie.
Bread pudding: much better than I expected. It's the only non-homemade version other than Tartine's that I've been able to stomach. It's very cinnamony, moist, and has some chocolate cream on top.
All in all, It was a very enjoyable, tasty meal and quite a good value: food for ten, two pitchers of margaritas, and an extra margarita as well. The bill turned out to be $30 a head, without anyone hungry enough that we needed to order more or even finish every last scrap of food. However, I think TA might be slipping. From reading the descriptions of the food on the SF Chronicle as well as on Chowhound, I felt like the food should be significantly different from what I could find in the Mission or at Chevy's. Instead, TA felt like a fancy version of the standard Northern Mexican food that we've all come to take for granted in California. Nothing was as spicy as the Chronicle described, and I didn't see one dish that wowed the table with its uniqueness. It's a shame; if there's a place where people would embrace something different it would be San Francisco.
Everyone enjoyed the Arette margaritas. Even those who had previously regarded restaurant margaritas as "Those icky things with that horribly bitter taste" conceded that TA's margaritas were smooooth. I usually like to blend my margaritas, but tonight's on the rocks version may have converted me to the beauty of a proper margarita on the rocks (or even straight up, chilled). Sadly enough, no one photographed the drinks.
Arette is a solid 100% blue agave margarita, and the restaurant uses the blanco, which had a very distinct floral taste and fruit-forward tang. The tequila really brought out the sourness in the lime as well as the sweetness in the agave nectar (they don't use sugar syrup here). All tequila is divided into blanco, reposado, and anejo depending on how long it's aged. Blancos taste most like agave-fruity, floral, vegetal in some ways. Anejos taste more like an aged brandy, and are dark brown. Reposados, in my opinion, are a worthless half-breed of anejos and blancos. They lack the finer qualities of the others without any redeeming value of their own. Anyway, Arette is great but somewhat hard to find. El Tesoro Blanco and Herradura Silver are usually what the higher end Mexican restarants serve by default. El Patron is great but heavily overpriced and enjoys great marketting success without actually tasting better, in my opinion. Casa Noble is super amazing, but again very expensive.
Tres Agaves
3 comments:
I suppose it's not that much a surprise that the food took a backseat to the tequila. It's named Three Agaves, it's founded by three people whose primary focus is on tequila, and it's serving food from the region where agave is grown and tequila distilled. The unifying theme here certainly isn't food. Too bad.
It is too bad. My co-worker is from the Jaliscan region and was describing all kinds of delicious food to me. None of the things she mentioned (posole, sopes, beef stew) were prominently featured on the TA menu. I'm just sad that TA is risking devolving into a Chevy's with smaller, more high class margaritas.
I'm not sure if you have actually read the menu, from your extensive review one would think so, but the Carne en su Jugo is a beef stew, the Sopes are an appetizer, and the Pozole is served for lunch/brunch. Loved your opinions on the food, I think you're right on, although I wouldn't even go close to comparing Chevy's. I have to admit the Arette tequila in the house margarita was a gamble that has definitely paid off! Best house marg in SF.
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